


Daylight

by academicdishonesty



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Emotions, Healing Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 15:36:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20744570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/academicdishonesty/pseuds/academicdishonesty
Summary: I was listening to the song this is titled after by Taylor Swift and had this idea and I had to write it out.Essentially this is meant to juxtapose sex and rape and in particular how this difference is highlighted in Andrew. Though there are a few people picking up on this trait I still feel that, moral ambiguity and judgement over some of his actions aside, Andrew doesn’t get enough credit for that mental strength and presence of mind. Someone so traumatized breaking the stereotype of  ‘dangerous bad boy scoffing at the thought of therapy’ is really refreshing and inspiring. I really don’t think he knows why he's working to get better but he is and he’s really doing it on his own. Which, even if I don’t personally identify with all of his trauma, I can really relate to. Finding a character striving to live and feel for no reason other than his own will to do so is incredible and I’d like to take a moment to thank our patron saint Sakavic for writing him into the world.





	Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> tw for any rape survivors - maybe get a friend to read first if you're unsure but interested in reading.  
you are also entirely welcome to message me even though idk how to private message on here i promise to try and I will be replying to comments as fast as possible. i dont have a tumblr as of yet but im working on it so maybe ill update w a link soon :)  
i highkey cried while writing this but it has a happy ending so please be careful with your mental health but know that its mostly about healing.

Breath on the back of his neck, in his ears. Sticky, cloying, rancid breath slowly liquified and slid down his cheeks to meet the spot where his silent tears soaked the pillow. It was four in the morning. It was silent but for the sounds being produced here in this bed he refused to call his own. No birds chirped, no engines chugged and revved on the street outside. A new moon, thereby, pitch black surrounded him and not only because his eyes were clamped shut and pressed into the pillow. The smell of salt permeated the air- a mixture of tears and sweat. He sickly anticipated the scent of more salt- at least that would mean it was over. The obscene sound of skin on skin sped along with the slowly rising sun, along with the panting gasps, the murmured obscenities of his latest tormentor. His skin crawled and stretched over his bones and muscles, stiff with terror and moist with sweat. All of his senses transmitted pure horror and he could not stop the production of the sound nor the scent or the feeling of this man- so he blocked those out and instead wondered abstractly if he could develop some way to shed off all of his skin like a snake; leave this ruined, decayed flesh behind and slither out of the hollow shell. 

An idea formed. He could not be experiencing this vile cacophony of sensory input because he was not this body, this vague half-human, he was a snake. Andrew the snake. He was a vegetarian snake though because fuck if he would ever eat a fucking rodent. No, he would munch on sweet berries in a field and befriend a little red rabbit. He would wind about its waist and neck and admire its floppy ears as it ran him through the valleys and hills. And if they ever happened upon some vicious predator, well, he was still a snake. He would slither down, down, on the dusty ground and extend his sharp fangs tipped with venom and protect both of them. When that was over he would slither back atop his rabbit steed and they would find a pleasant-smelling jasmine grove to call home for the night. The rabbit would dig a hole under a bush with its blunt claws and he would slither in after it and they would sleep fur against scales and the darkness would be soothing and the sound of critters scampering about the forest would lull them to sleep.

He was snapped out of his drifting reverie by the sharp sting of a hand hitting his ass. He continued to lay unmoving but for the minute tremors running through his small body until he heard the door close. He then rose onto his elbows and lifted his head out of the pillow to take a deep shuddering breath. Pain made itself known from many different sources: his wrists which were sure to bruise tellingly, his shoulder where teeth marks would ache for days, and, most palpably, from his ass and lower back. He couldn’t detail the minutiae of those injuries to himself right then though. He would receive no medical treatment and there was no accessible first aid kit so there was no point in worrying beyond how to make the bleeding stop and how to hide the bruises at school the next day. He briefly deliberated gathering what little cash he had squirreled away and making a trip out the window to a drugstore for some sort of painkillers before remembering the litany of issues that would entail: walking, encountering other humans; pain, shame. Yeah, no. A shower then. 

He allowed himself a moment of miserable stillness before attempting to move and when he did - when he did all of his senses blared visceral reminders of what had just happened and it was too much. 

So much. 

Why was everything _so_ much? 

He hadn’t allowed himself to _really_ cry in years. Not prepared for the implications. But, right then, alone with nothing but the sound of his own shaky breaths and the distinct _scent_ that he knew all too well surrounding him, inside of him, unwilling to be ignored, he felt his chest constrict with pressure, felt loss so distinctly. He knew in that moment, if he were to let himself cry, he would sob, loud and broken, and would not stop until he passed out. He would cry in great heaving sobs of grief for everything that had been taken from him _again_, for a family that had, however unknowingly, condemned him to this awful life, for God or some other benevolent power because desperation breeds faith no matter its falsity, for the child he might have been before the first time someone had crooned for him to use his manners, and beg for them not to hurt him only to laugh and continue no matter his protests. He would mourn childish naïveté and scream until his vocal cords bled, praying for blissful ignorance. No matter that he remembered that crying never made it stop because there was a _hole_ in his _chest_. He could feel it pressing down on his heart. It was wide open and bleeding and surely the weight of this wound would kill him if it did not close soon. 

His eyes were so heavy and wet and he trembled in agony and unbridled grief.

Fortunately, (or not) he was reminded of Andrew the snake and, in a moment of overwhelming urgency to not allow such intense vulnerability in a place where he was anything but safe, shed away his grief, his feelings, blocked out as much sensory input as possible without losing function. He could feel the brutal hollowness reverberate through him and knew, distantly, that he should’ve damned the consequences of being heard and cried. With scarcely a moment to brace against the pain, he buried that notion down deep and focused on stripping the bed and shoving his ruined clothes and sheets into the hamper, closing the lid, and spraying the whole thing with air freshener. He opened the window uncaring of any late-summer mosquitoes, grabbed new clothes, and walked into the adjacent bathroom where he locked the door and firmly averted his eyes from the mirror.

He thought of a lesson on reptiles from third grade, specifically the part about how they were cold-blooded, as he showered in scalding water. He pretended the red tint to the water was just the rabbit shedding its winter coat in a stream. It did not matter that he knew, logically, that this was not true because, right then, he was far beyond rational thought. He was simply going through the motions of getting as clean as he felt he could ever manage to be.

Half a bar of soap and a vigorous towel-dry later Andrew dressed in two pairs of black sweats and his largest, softest, hoodie and made his way back to the bedroom to grab more towels. He used them to dry out the tub and tiled walls and then gathered a new blanket and as many pillows as he could carry from the hall closet and piled them in the bathtub. He locked the door to the bathroom, turned off the light and felt along the wall to his den. He slithered beneath his blankets and blocked out the suffocating memories with dreams of days in the sun. Days where he was not alone, where he was able to defend himself and his friend and not lay awake fearing the moment when he would next become the prey of wretched.

* * *

Years later, Bee helped him work on not slipping into a dissociative state to cope and he had mostly done away with it; the snake and the rabbit still existed in the part of his mind that dealt with helplessness and grief but it was now a matter of choice rather than the status quo and he had the tools to combat it’s tempting weightlessness. That work that he put in though. Hours of back and forth with a woman that had started to grey prematurely due, at least in some part, to the endless well of evasion and snipe that lived within a five foot even blonde she had dedicated a piece of her heart to. A man who was trying to get better for no reason anyone could truly discern - not even himself - but would only be doing so on his terms and with the aid of copious amounts of liquid sugar. And, after graduation, a new, equally exasperated, therapist who strived to continue the work of the good lord Bee. That work and effort and intent. The boundaries and the setbacks and the trust of one, not identically but, equally broken man. Allowed him this:

Short, steamy, puffs of breath punctuated kisses to his pulse, just beneath his jaw, the shell of his ear. The feeling of Neil’s soft hair between his fingers as he shivered through the breathtaking sensation of those plush, slick lips on his neck kept him grounded in the moment. A moment in which he had a lapful of happy, horny Neil. They were both still fully clothed though they had been wrapped up in each other for roughly half an hour now, not for lack of wanting to go further, but because one (both) of them had a neck fetish and it was damn distracting. Andrew didn’t often allow Neil to take the lead as he had that day but he was enjoying the fact that they could take it slow - get worked up until they couldn’t wait any longer and then take each other apart. They didn’t always have the time with their busy schedules so, each time Neil moved his attention to a new spot to suck a mark into, Andrew would tell himself it would just be ‘one more’ before he flipped them and took control. It had been long enough now that he had worked through some of the vulnerability of allowing Neil to pleasure him instead of the other way around. The tiny involuntary coos and moans Neil made between kisses told him that he was enjoying it too, also, his hard cock against Andrew’s thigh from where he lightly straddled him on the couch - that was also somewhat telling. After another minute, Neil seemed to realize, through the haze of lust, that he was the one who would have to set the pace that day. He worked his way back up to Andrew’s ear and whispered, “I want to suck you off, yes or no?”

And...and? They had done this before. It had been years since the first time but, it felt different today, it felt like a barrier coming down and in the moment Andrew could not yet pinpoint the exact nature of this crumbling wall but it did not feel bad. It felt like daylight after a week straight of rain. And fuck if he didn’t want to lay in the sun and feel the warmth soak into his skin, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, he had earned that. So he cupped Neil’s scarred cheek with his other hand, framing Neil’s face, and kissed him more softly than he had previously thought himself capable of and answered against Neil’s lips, “Yes, thighs and up and don't touch my arms.”

The caveat that Neil obeyed unquestioningly was because Andrew didn’t think he could bare this moment being ruined by the rain. He wanted one perfect memory to remember on the bad days. He wanted a golden moment to _shine_ amongst the shades of grey and the more recent reds and blues. He knew the risk that even the fleeting thought that he was about to be held down during a sexually-charged situation posed and just-no, not today.

They clumsily rearranged themselves so that Andrew was leaning against the arm of the couch, one leg hanging off and one pressed longways against the back, Neil on his knees between his legs. Neil pressed a lingering kiss to his lips and then tugged slightly on his shirt questioningly. Andrew swiftly pulled it off and Neil happily took to licking his way down Andrew’s exposed chest. He stopped for a moment to pull off his own and say against his chest, “ You can touch me anywhere.”

Andrew appreciated the equalizing nature of the action and the words, more than he could verbalize so he trusted Neil to read it in his eyes and from his gentle scraping at Neil’s scalp. Neil resumed his trail down Andrew’s chest with renewed vigor, eagerly tweaking a nipple with one hand and sucking on the other until Andrew hissed and squirmed at the sensitivity. Andrew was so overtaken by that unnamed something that he didn’t even snipe at him to stop teasing. Neil seemed to get the message anyway, and swiftly made his way downwards making sure to run his hands slowly down Andrew’s chest and stomach. He bit into the waistband of Andrew’s sweatpants and slowly pulled it down all while looking Andrew in the eyes. Which was somehow both incredibly stupid and insanely hot. If that didn’t define Neil though he didn’t know what would. Neil asked once more with his hand hovering over the hem of his underwear, “Still yes?”

That same feeling swelled along with his cock and it shouldn’t have been monumental, it was basic consent, instead it was testament to the extent of cruelty possible of the human race that that was still more than he had been given by anyone when he really needed it and he realized that the feeling that was coming over him had originated from somewhere very old and so grotesquely young inside him. But it didn’t feel like breaking it felt like - healing. He nodded and said yes at the same time and smugness twinkled in Neil’s ice-blue eyes that Andrew couldn’t bring himself to begrudge him lest he wish to insult both of their intelligence, not when he was so transparently eager and Neil was so intensely perceptive.

Neil slid a hand into Andrew’s briefs and pulled out his cock. They had spent thirty minutes getting worked up so he wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest at the sight of the slick precum that shone in the light. Neil swirled his tongue about the tip and dipped it into the slit only to retract his tongue back into his mouth and close his eyes to hum and smile at the taste of Andrew on his tongue.

“He is so fucking dramatic it really doesn’t taste good,” was what Andrew would’ve been thinking if he wasn’t actually thinking “Holyshitholyshitholyshit” and, “I was right that tongue is definitely only capable of causing trouble.”

Out loud, however, Andrew was only capable of producing a singular sound - a hissed, “shit.” 

Neil smiled brightly and took to the task in earnest, swallowing him whole in one languid movement that he had learned from Andrew. At that point, thoughts that didn’t center around Neil and his lips stretching around Andrew's cock and his throat convulsing around him as he swallowed and vibrating when he hummed and his _tongue_ left Andrew for awhile. But when Andrew was close he couldn’t help but examine the man before him, a man entirely focused in that moment on making Andrew feel good, _enjoying_ making Andrew feel good. With that thought and a squeeze of Neil’s shoulder in warning, he came hard down Neil’s throat.

Reverberations of pleasure and that something else echoed through Andrew as he closed his eyes and breathed through the aftershock. Neil guided him through it with his hand, licked him clean and neatly tucked him away. He positively melted into the couch, eyes closed, his forearm braced against his forehead.

It was only when Neil started kissing his cheeks that he realized he was crying. He was crying slow, silent, tears and Neil was kissing them away. He felt it again then. That hole in chest. But it felt different now. It felt heavy and aching but in a good way, in a way that let him know that for the first time he was truly, wholly, safe, cared for, he was Home. And, with that realization, the weight crawled up his throat and with that movement came the sobs, the great, trembling, heaving, sobs that he had locked away so long ago, when he was in such incomprehensible pain. Neil seemed to understand why and what his tears meant in that shrewd way of his. And so he gathered Andrew’s hands into his, kissed them, and pressed his forehead against his knuckles. Like Andrew was something holy, something worthy of love. It only made him cry harder and press his face into Neil’s shoulder.

Neil eventually ended up in Andrew’s arms while he calmed down. Providing warmth and comfort while he was still coming back to himself. Skin to skin, cheek to cheek. He didn’t seem to care that Andrew hadn’t reciprocated, if anything he seemed glad that he hadn’t. Because he had witnessed something profound that night. Something that shone and glittered with shimmering fragility. Something that so greatly exceeded the urge to get off. He had said to Andrew, years before, that he wanted to see him lose control and had gotten his wish. Hope was a beautiful thing and Andrew was no exception to its light. He looked years younger and so much lighter. He _felt _years younger and lighter.

They lay, just breathing, together for an unknown amount of time. Until the strain of all-encompassing relief crashed into Andrew and Neil softly murmured that they should go to bed. They sluggishly walked towards their bedroom and collapsed into their bed and all Andrew could think, with Neil snug in his arms and shining with the moonlight, was the same thought over and over, “I’m safe, I’m home, Neil.” 

This wasn’t the end of the bad days. There was no 'cure' for mental illness just ways of dealing. But the weight. The weight of grief, was no longer pressing down on his chest. The gaping wound that was his heart and his soul had healed over and in its place was thin, fresh, scar tissue ready to finally start becoming something representing a whole after so long being in pieces. He fell asleep, for the first time in what felt like forever, without fear.  Just contentedness and warmth and Neil, whose name had started to sound like Home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello world, this is my first published work so to anyone that may read this or any of my work in the future here is my general standard for interaction: I strive to improve in everything I do, including writing, and will notify readers otherwise if need be. That being said, I wholeheartedly welcome well founded constructive criticism and invite and implore you to correct any of my mistakes both in grammar and content. My writing is not intended to offend so please do not hesitate to notify me if there is some line I have overstepped and suggest steps I should take to mitigate any of those errors and furthermore ensure they will not be repeated. However, I will not tolerate any cruelty towards or persecution of me or my readers in my space on this platform or any others. Nor will I entertain any unsavory behavior otherwise, including the promotion of offensive actions or degradation of others. I reserve the right to banish your ass from my space. Tl;dr i love you and i want you to talk to me but don’t b a fuckn dick or else. :)


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